Berlin Alexanderplatz
by Jaensdenim
Summary: They head toward the rising sun, the both of them, East and Russia.
1. 1

"You must be fucking kidding me."

There's a hint of anger, a hint of tiredness and absolutely no surprise in East's voice. It's to be expected. Russia and he haven't had the best relationship, as far as relationships between their kind go. At the same time, East has never had anything anyone could ever classify as a good relationship with anybody. He's just not that kind of person. He's just not like West, dear, conciliating West, with his filthy money and suffocating guilt.

East doesn't give fucks, not anymore anyway. Somehow, he manages not to kick Russia in the nuts as the asshole just sits there next to him as if he had the fucking permission to do so. Russia doesn't have his permission to do anything. In fact, he wouldn't even be allowed to step a foot in Berlin, had East the slightest influence in West's gestion of the place. East doesn't have a say in whatever happens in West's office, though, and so Russia is there, and he's smiling like a cat with a dead bird in his mouth.

East realizes that the reason he's not kicking him away is because there's a paper tray with currywurst on his lap that's waiting to be eaten. If there's any rule East will ever respect, it's not to waste perfectly decent meat.

"It's that time of the year again, isn't it?"

Russia has a weird accent in German, but at least he's not trying to get East to speak Russian. East, who has always hated Russian, half-heartedly appreciates the effort.

"Fuck you," he answers simply between two bites of sausage. "Is this one of West's attempts to make himself feel better about how utterly fucked our great brotherly relationship is?"  
"Would you like it to be?"

Russia's question isn't a question, and East knows it. He doesn't answer, picks another piece of currywurst from his cardboard tray, munches it purposefully. Russia keeps on smiling, that stupid empty smile of him. It's awkward but it's not as awkward as spending the day with West would be, and so he stays there, sitting at this ungodly hour of the morning on Alexanderplatz, eating junk food next to the guy that had reduced this whole city into nothingness so many years ago.

Russia's there on his own, obviously, now that East thinks of it. West wouldn't ask him anything out of pride, mainly because he hates him for a thousand of different reasons, most of them, East has to admit, are valid. East knows that his brother had he somehow brought himself to face their current situation, would have misguidedly sent Austria to deal with him. The whole thing would have ended up in angry, awkward fucking, so it's better this way. East wouldn't even think about fucking Russia in his current state.

"You know, if you're looking for a new bitch because Lithuania left twenty years ago, you're really fucking misguided. I'm not going to trade whatever piece-of-shit of a life I have right now to go back to Königsberg."  
"It's Kaliningrad," Russia states calmly.

East just looks at him with a half-eaten piece of sausage in his mouth and he remembers why he hates Russian as a language so much.

"And I am not here for that. I'm not that desperate yet, you know."

Russia's words do sting a bit but East won't admit it out loud. He looks at the potatoes in his tray, grabs one and puts it in his mouth. They're a bit too salty, but potatoes are potatoes. If he hurries up in finishing them, maybe he'll get to get to beat up one of his ancient enemy on an empty berlinese public place before the sun rises. He'd probably get shit from West for doing so, and somehow that fact makes the prospect even more tempting.

"I had some time off and it's been a long time since I've seen one of us die. I was wondering how you would do it."

At this very moment, East's thoughts go blank. He was expecting some kind of retarded mind-games everybody plays with everybody in this stupid, stupid new way of dealing with problems everyone calls diplomacy, but it's not, and Russia's words are honest to the point of being blunt. It's surprising to say the least, and East wishes he feel anger, white-hot, real, living anger about it but he doesn't. He realises that what he feels right now is thankfulness and it's an odd sort of relief. Russia might be an asshole, but he's the honest kind of asshole, at least most of the time. They're both monsters and they're both very much aware of that fact, unlike West, unlike America, unlike fucking France, hiding his head in the sand and pretending that everything was alright.

East looks at Russia, looks at the bench they're sitting on, and suddenly a thousand years come crashing before his eyes. There are the elegant balls in Paris, where everything ever gets decided, and then there are the thundering battles in the sun and in the rain, and blood, always blood. The horses scream and the bombs fall and East (Or had he another name? He doesn't know anymore.) laughs with madness making his whole body shake. He remembers the taste of cheap coffee and Russia's mildly surprised stare as he came to greet him in the airport with blood under his fingernails and screams of despair hanging around his ears. He remembers West face, and then suddenly gravity shifts, drags him back to earth. It's over.

He's back on Alexanderplatz, back to the reality of the scarred skyline of Berlin and there are no more potatoes on his paper tray. East sighs, wraps the curry soaked cardboard into a ball he throws into the nearest trashcan with a large move of the right arm. Russia takes out a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket with an elegant drawn-out movement, just as if he already knew what East needed right now. The first rays of the sun have risen over the horizon. It's too late to start kicking his ass now.

"I bought them on the way here," Russia says matter-of-factly, placing the filter between his lips and producing a cheap disposable lighter from his breast pocket. "I stopped smoking, you see, but I thought you might enjoy a little souvenir."

East looks at the blue packaging of fresh Gauloises, lets out a snort before taking the lit cigarette Russia presents him. He breathes, and the tobacco smoke is bitter. It's not exactly the same as twenty years ago, though, because Russia's cigarettes don't taste like black market and privilege anymore. They just taste like boring old French cigarettes, and somehow, as he breathes in and out, East can hear the sound of human flesh sizzling and screams reverberating in hidden empty prison cells. He chases the thought and the smoke with a non-descript move of the hand.

"Remember when they told us that the wall would last a thousand years?" he asks Russia, and the corner of his mouth does that funny little thing that isn't a half-smile just yet.  
"Yes. Strange humans, were they not?"  
"Yeah."

East catches himself staring at that ridiculous clock they just sort of put there in the middle of an empty place surrounded by too large building a few decades ago. He catches himself wondering if the weather is good in Königsberg at this time of the year. It's most probably terrible, because Eastern Prussia has always been a piece shit land where nothing grew.

"Tell me, what did you do when it all fell down?"

Russia's voice has a strange kind of softness to it as he says this. It's almost like compassion, except East knows better than to expect anything of the kind from him.

"Went to see West in Bonn with the old cardboard bitch. Then I came back to Berlin, burned the fucking car with the rest of the files they had on me, drank Kölsch and watched pornography. It's stupid, but I sort of miss that piece of shit Trabi now that West bought me one of those fancy western car. Easily available porn is great, though. I fucking hated the black-market brand of cheap, out-of-date tits and asses."  
"The unexpected downsides of capitalism."

East gives Russia a look, blows smoke out through his nose.

"And what did you do when it ended?"  
"I drank almost as much as when the war ended. It was beautiful"

Russia smiles and East can see his teeth glint as he does. There's only one real war that they can properly call this way, every single one of them knows that, and it feels weird that he would just mention it like that. West never talks about it, because West is West, and guilt cripples him like an old wound, but for Russia, for Russia it meant eternal glory. It's weird, how utterly different they feel about the whole mess, East and West and Russia and America and the rest of them. It's almost like if they hadn't fought in the same war.

Russia sees his pensive face from the corner of his eyes as he says the words, and he lets out a throaty laugh.

"Is it a sensitive subject, really? I would understand for your brother, but you never seemed to care much about me mentioning it, back in the days. Has time really made you so soft?"  
"Fuck you."

East throws away his cigarette butt. Berlin is slowly waking up, and people are starting to come out of the subway and train stations. East doesn't want people, not here, not yet, not now. He rises up to leave and Russia's eyes, just as empty as when he was tearing this city apart, Russia's eyes follow him as he does so. Suddenly East feels stupid, with his jeans and freezing leather coat in the autumn breeze. He feels like the goddamn Ossie he's always been since the end of the war, with no money and no future, and an uncanny attraction to symbols of a long lost era. He can't bring himself to move and fuck if he doesn't hate himself for letting it go in front of fucking Russia of all people.

"I'm not West, not yet. I've never been West. He didn't tear Poland into pieces times and times again. I did this. I created modern warfare. I'm the one who turned you into a bleeding, begging mess and laughed as your precious union and the world burned. Don't you fucking think I might ever want to forget this."

Russia's laugh softens, but there's something hard still shining in the corner of his eyes. He rises too, as if to fucking stalk East back to his flat on Karl-Marx Allee, takes another cigarette from his pocket, lights it. The first drag he takes out of it feels oddly sexual, and he closes his eyes as if he was moaning. East reconsiders the whole not-fucking-him thing for a moment, throws the idea away. Russia has never had the boyish kind of pretty East usually liked in men.

"I thought you had stopped smoking," East states flatly.

He sort of wants to leave but Russia won't let go. The situation feels painfully familiar.

"I thought you had turned into a hypocritical westerner just like your brother. I have been wrong before."

That answer makes East smile without really wanting to. Once again, Russia is a complete ass, but at least he's honest about it, and East can appreciate honesty. They all have dirty laundry somewhere, they've all bathed themselves in blood and screams of dying men and women, but only a few of them seem to truly realise and acknowledge it. Maybe Russia being here isn't that bad, or at least it wouldn't be that bad if he had a few beers in his blood system right now. He shrugs, starts walking, and Russia follows as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The sun makes the whole city come alive, and the old communist architecture that characterizes the eastern neighbourhoods of the city seems a little bit less ugly in the light of day.

Russia doesn't say a word as they walk, smokes absentmindedly, ashes pilling themselves up on his cigarette between flickers of the hand. East returns the courtesy. He's not sure he wants to hear Russia say another word about how he's about to die.

There's a whistling noise as they get to the car, that ridiculously flashy car West dreams of driving but could never buy for himself, and it makes East laughs. He props himself in the driver seat, looks at Russia.

"Judging the pros and cons of capitalism?"  
"You told me that your brother had offered you a car to replace the Trabant. I was expecting something else."  
"You don't know West."

It's a shame Russia and West won't talk unless forced to, East can't help but to think as the car starts and old-school punk starts blasting from the Maserati's speakers. They actually have a lot in common, including a love of fine cars and getting shit-faced. The city rolls under the cars wheels and The Sex Pistols scream about England and shit East never really cared about. Russia doesn't comment, because East would probably kick him out without even stopping if he did, throws his cigarette out the window, watches the streets as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world. Maybe they are, somehow, or so East can't help but to think.

"So I take that we are going back to your brother's place?" Russia asks, somehow managing to make himself heard over a guitar riff.

East turns down the volume a notch directly from the wheel. Fancy Italian cars did have their advantages.

"So it's true that you guys all think that I've turned into some sort of basement dweller, huh? It's funny, because West and I don't live together."

Russia only gives him a slightly confused stare. East grins and it tastes sour.

"West fucking hates this place. I mean he comes here to work, but damn if he's not happier in, I don't know, fucking Munich or Dusseldorf."

The moment the words fly out of his mouth, East knows this is too much of a confession.

Russia doesn't say anything right away, his eyes purposefully fixed on the road in front of him. It's almost as if he doesn't know what to do with the information. East looks at him and wonders if Russia has any idea how actually fucked his relationship with West has always been, or so it seems. He probably knows it to some extent, given his own problematic dealings with his sisters, but he's still on talking terms with Ukraine even though he starved her to death and offered her destroyed body for the taking, so he obviously has some kind of magic trick for dealing with relatives. East remember her screams of loathing and pain, and somehow, somewhere, it makes his spine shiver with feelings he's not sure he wants to fully acknowledge.

"I remember hating Moscow, back in the days. I changed my mind. Your brother will change his mind too, one day."

East doesn't know if this is supposed to make him feel any way better, because it obviously doesn't. Russia has always had a hard time understanding that the rest of the world didn't work things out the way he did. He doesn't know guilt, not the kind of guilt that suffocates West and France and the others. Russia drinks his troubles away, rewrites his own history on a whim and never cries over what has been done. East wishes he could be like this too, sometimes. He shrugs, turns the volume back up, and makes the engine roar. He would have stopped by on Karl-Marx Allee for the both of them to get a drink but he's got a better idea now.

Russia closes his eyes as if to sleep and the car flies into the morning sun.


	2. 2

Russia's right eyebrow curves into an elegant arch as East orders a meal for the both of them in perfect Polish. He only makes a silent dismissing sign when the lady working at the milk bar asks him if he'll be needing anything more. They get their meals, find an empty table, sit. Russia has always hated Polish with a burning passion, even more than East absolutely loathes Russian. East doesn't really understand why, but once again he doesn't really understand Russia's quirks much, has never done.

"I thought you had forgotten everything about Polish," he says in his own heavily accented but grammatically perfect German. "You always refused to speak with Poland in any other language than German."

"I forgot everything about speaking with Poland." East shrugs. "It's not the same thing."

He places his fork and knife around his plate with a practiced military exactitude, eats quickly with large, purposeful bites. The milk bar, with its spartiate decoration and bland tasteless food reminds him of the barracks and the flags, somehow, and it's a good kind of feeling. He attacks the pierogis without even taking the time to taste them, and Russia watches him do so with mild amusement, eating the same plate with the slight disdain typical of the monarchy he had killed over a century ago.

"Anyway, I've been practicing a bit since the wall fell down. You took the time to walk around the city, right?"

Russia shakes his head. Of course he hasn't. Russia cannot care about Berlin, not after drinking himself to euphoria as it burnt and grounding it to fine dust before blowing it away. East tries to ignore that fact for a moment, keeps on talking.

"Capitalism, man. It makes the world go 'round. I don't have much to do, I mean, you don't know fucking West but yeah, he won't let me do any significant work if he can avoid it, so I've been talking to the people, you know. I mean, I think I hadn't really done that since Fritz's time, and it's nice, somehow."

As he listens to East talking, Russia takes a sip of water. It's a one of those state-owned restaurants that somehow managed to survive the 1990s, so the glasses are plastic and the water is ice-cold from the tap. East likes it because it's cheap and it reminds him of those god-awful meetings he had to have once in a while with the SED leaders, old men with old ideas pretending they didn't know what he represented. Russia isn't as uneasy as East thought he would have been, and it's a shame, really, because if there's anything that might have made Russia uneasy in any way, it's being in Poland eating Polish food. East realises once again that Russia is different from the others, that he stopped giving fucks about stuff like their collective history and the weight of his past actions long ago.

"And what do they have to say?" Russia asks, his hands folded on his lap.  
"Human bullshit, obviously. But their voices sound nice, and I got to learn Turkish. Of course, that fucking little bitch Austria can't help but to make those retarded remarks about me always sounding like a foreigner."

Russia laughs a bit under his breath. It's a strangely unsarcastic laugh. East huffs as he does.

"He hasn't changed."  
"Prickly little shit."  
"Are you still fucking him?"

East, who has been awkwardly playing with the pierogies on his plate, snorts. It's funny, how keenly right Russia is on certain matters and painfully oblivious he is on others. It doesn't matter.

"Everybody is always fucking Austria. That's his secret weapon."  
"Does that mean yes?"  
"No."

East puts a piece of cabbage in his mouth, chews lazily and talks with his mouth full.

"I'm not interesting or interested anymore. The only reason we still talk is because West believes we're somehow friends and that I might need a familiar face in my agony. Well fuck if that's the face I want to bring in the grave."

Russia smiles, that annoying smug smile of him, munches on his own pierogis without really seeming to care. He swallows his bite down quickly, takes out a small flask of vodka from his coat pocket, empties it in one long gulp, doesn't offer East any of it. East watches him do so, a bit annoyed.

"Yeah, thanks for your fucking input. I bet you haven't had Lithuania since then, huh?"  
"What did you say?"

There's a pause. Russia's face makes this odd kind of blank expression, and East wonders for a moment if Russia might not be able to feel anything else than superficial, fleeting emotions after all. He's probably not, though. Russia is monster like every single one of them, and Russia knows it. He'll never be able to feel anything else than quiet bone-gnawing hate and insatiable fucking greed. East can respect than, somehow. It doesn't mean he doesn't want to push him over the hedge.

"I said that you haven't fucked your dear beloved Lithuania since you tore your own empire to pieces."

Russia's breath goes unusually quiet, as if he's some sort of savannah predator waiting to leap on his prey. The image is amusing and East suddenly misses his time in Africa and that old prick Bismarck. What he doesn't expect is Russia's fork landing directly between his ring finger and his pinky. It's quick and it doesn't make a sound, staying firmly planted up into the wooden table as Russia retires his hand from its handle. East blinks, doesn't move, and looks stupidly at the act of small-time vandalism. The old women back in the milk bar's kitchen are still working, seemingly unaware of anything happening on this side of the restaurant. He swallows the food still in his mouth with a loud sound.

"What did you say?" Russia asks again, playing nonchalantly with his knife this time. It's not a very pointy knife, but East knows how crafty Russia can be with improvised weapons. He rolls his eyes.

"Oh, just grow the fuck up already, Jesus Christ..."

It seems to be a somehow satisfying answer for Russia, who takes a long sip from his glass of water before picking a pierogi from his plate, placing it in his mouth, masticating slowly. East imitates him begrudgingly, his eyebrows frowned.

"Please don't talk about Lithuania," Russia says after a moment. "It makes me very sad."

East sighs, obeys. He would like getting in a fight with Russia, a real, face-punching fight for old time's sake, but the timing isn't right. He finishes eating quickly and in silence. He doesn't even remember why he decided that he wanted to go to Königsberg and bring Russia with him. He's starting to feel dumb about this, but damn if he will back down on this perfect occasion to piss West off. The food tastes bland but it fills him up. They still have quite a bit of travelling to do for the day and he needs the calories, especially on these pieces of shit things Poland likes to call roads.

He decides to light up another cigarette when they exit the milk bar. Russia isn't speaking either, gives him a questioning look as he takes out the blue cardboard box of Gauloises from his own jeans pockets. East shrugs.

"You were sleeping and you don't smoke," he offers as an explanation for pick pocketing him back in the car.

The tobacco smoke has an acrid taste and it feels good now that East's stomach is full. They get back in the car, ridiculously flashy piece of fine engineering in front of a decrepit Soviet building. It feels completely out of place and East appreciates the contrast. It's almost like seeing the lights of West-Berlin from his run-down apartment not too far from the Palast der Republik.

The sun is starting to set, but East likes driving at night, and he has never been one for sleeping anyway. They'll be there by sunrise, if nothing goes wrong.

Russia slides into his seat without a further word. The motor starts. They're gone.

It's a silent drive for most of the night, with East's eyes fixed on the road, the soft, barely inaudible sound of the engines now that they're on cruise-control. The radio is off; East grew tired of The Clash at some point past Krakow. Russia sleeps or feigns to sleep. East's cell phone lies is in his pocket, silent. West hasn't rung. It's a good thing, East tells himself.

The stars shine over the quiet empty countryside and East remembers other travels through Poland, exhausting, aching travels in trains flying through the night and the smell of death sticking itself everywhere, to the wheels of the locomotive and the bodies of starved shadows of human beings. He has never had the same kind of relationship towards the events as West, obviously, possibly because he's older, most probably because he hasn't had America drilling him distilled guilt into his brain for decades. West may be good at hiding it, but East can see it so clearly, how his brother shakes under the weight of it, how his face goes blank when he thinks of the past and of those other names they used to call East. He doesn't blame the self-righteous little shit from the other side of the Atlantic, though. The boy was just playing the game.

East's feelings toward America are somehow a bit complicated. It's different than with, let's say, France or England, mainly because he knows that most of America's decisions are motivated by plain stupidity and an odd kind of wide-eyed idealism everybody in Europe has lost centuries ago. He reminds him of West back in the days, only if West was the kind of irresponsible, disorganised kid Austria and the others had always dreamt of raising.

East's thoughts drift into that no man's land he always tried to avoid in that time of the year. He's tired and he can't really fight it off. He thinks of Saxony and Bavaria, and how they died slow, painful deaths somewhere in the last century. He knows it's not West's fault, or at least it's not West's fault as much as it is his own. He had done what he had to do. They lost. His empire fell apart. Democracy hadn't suited any of them.

East doesn't miss them, not any more than he misses that little brat that called himself an empire and that Austria loved so much. Their kind come and go, the same way humans and leaders come and go. He had always hated Bavaria anyway. Thinking about this does nothing except reminding it of his own mortality, and it's a weird kind of feeling.

As if on cue, Russia opens his mouth.

"You still haven't told me."  
"Told you what? Why we're going to Königsberg?"  
"It's Kaliningrad."

His hands still on the wheel, East gives a quick look at Russia's face. His eyes are still closed. Smug bastard. East stays silent, hands firmly gripping the wheel. He's too tired to argue with Russia or come up with witty retorts. It's funny how draining Russia's company is sometimes, or maybe it isn't. He hates himself for bringing him on the road, suddenly.

Russia sighs.

"It's not Lithuania that I miss, you know. It's the power he gave me by taking every blow without even trying to fight."

It's an unexpected kind of confession but East doesn't try to add anything, mainly because just a few words from Russia are enough to make anyone painfully awkward. He thinks about turning the radio back on, but doesn't. He's just not that kind of coward, not yet. He's not West.

"I wasn't angry when he left," Russia continues, his voice a soft, oddly cheery tone in the night. "Power had left me years ago. It wasn't enjoyable anymore; telling you and Hungary and the others not to leave had become a chore. I let go and embraced the new ways with that happy ignorance America spreads around him like a disease. I have no more regrets than you do, but sometimes I miss being at the top of the world and watching worms grovel at my feet."

East grits his teeth. He doesn't dare looking at Russia.

"Shut up and go back to sleep."

Russia does as he's told, somehow. He doesn't even look angry or surprised. He turns to face the window with its starry sky, doesn't make a sound. East keeps on driving, but there are heavier thoughts clouding his head now and making his eyebrows frown without him really realising it. He tells himself that it doesn't matter but it does.

Rain starts to fall somewhere around midnight and East activates the windshield wipers as it does. Somehow, he hopes that it's also raining in Berlin.


	3. 3

Russia looks at East with an empty look on his face as he screams and throws rocks at the Baltic as if the sea had personally wronged him. Maybe it did, Russia can't know. The whole universe, at this very moment, has wronged East, and East wants it to burn for it. It won't so he screams and hisses and throws things until his arms ache. Russia just happens to be the accidental witness so East can't really take out his anger on him. He doesn't really care about him being there, it's not like he hadn't seen Russia's fits of fury back in the days, but he still somehow wishes he could just gorge the asshole's eyes out for giving him that kind of look. He doesn't do it because it would be useless. It's not Russia that he especially wants to kill today.

At one point or another, his throat goes raw from the screaming and his fingernails ache from digging sand to throw at the water. East stops, lets himself fall on the sea strand. He feels pearly grains of sand and mud against the back of his head and knows instantly that his hair will be a hell to clean. It's not enough of a motivation to make him move from here. He's drained, weight of the years crashing on his shoulders and making his whole body ache, drained like a dead man walking should be. He doesn't want to rise. He closes his eyes and prays for oblivion.

It doesn't come.

Or maybe it does. Suddenly there's a large shadow over East that blocks him from the sun. He doesn't react right away because he still vainly hopes that if he wills it strong enough, he's really going to get himself to die just by staying like this. He stays there, eyebrows frowned under the effort, for at least a good minutes. It doesn't work because God has stopped even listening to anything East has to say somewhere in the turn of the last century and East hated him for it, still does. He opens his eyes.

Russia is standing over him, holding over his face the leather jacket East had abandoned in the car. As it dangles over his head, he remembers that this place is still a piece of shit land where nothing grows and that he's starting to get cold. He raises his hands up and they fall back in the sand. He's too tired.

East can't see Russia's expression but he can see him shrugging, taking something out of his jacket's breast pocket. Stealing the cigarettes back seems like a typical Russian thing to do, and East would like to protest but it would need him to speak and his throat aches from the previous incoherent screaming. He's agreeably surprised when Russia slips a lit cigarette between his lips. He breathes in, takes the filter between his fingertips and away from his mouth, breathes out. The smoke curls swiftly into ragged, fleeting forms as it disappears in the cold air of the Baltic. East watches as if it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Russia is still an asshole but damn if this isn't just what East needed right now. He raises himself up lazily, give a look at Russia who's sitting right next to him, his jacket still in his hands. East grabs it with a quick movement of the right hand, meets no resistance as he draws it back to him. It ends up simply sitting on his lap, even though his teeth going to start clanking from the cold soon if he doesn't put it on. Too much effort for little pay-off.

Russia doesn't speak right away so East stays silent too. When he does, though, East can't help but to grit his teeth out of annoyance. He needed a cigarette, not Russia indifferent curiosity.

"I thought that coming to Königsberg was your way of celebrating the anniversary."

East shrugs.

"It's Kaliningrad," he says and it's enough of an answer to make Russia go quiet for a few more moments, an amused smile curling his lips. East throws away his half-finished cigarette with an angry huff. Even that doesn't feel good anymore.

"You're unhappy to be here."  
"No fucking shit, Sherlock."

Russia lets out a quiet laugh and East wants to break his neck right here and right now. He remembers that he's on Russian land right now, gives up the idea of trying to start a fight he knows he's going to lose. He wants to die but not like that.

"I should have told you to fuck off back on Alexanderplatz. This was a stupid idea."  
"I don't think it was. It's been a long time since I came to Poland. Pretty countryside."  
"And fucking shitty roads."

East lets out a tired laugh that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Russia sighs in amusement, rises up his head to look at the sky. East imitates him in silence. It's blue and infinite and it reminds him of West's eyes when he tries to hide that devouring guilt that gnaws his bones into fine dust whenever he looks at East. Fucking West and his fucking conscience, dragging his feet down and making his steps sound like one of those ominous marches Austria liked to play so much back when they were fucking on a semi-regular basis. Austria had pretty hands, still does, flower-like and moving like water as he speaks.

He closes his eyes, feels the caress of the sun against his face and he's a little bit less cold. There's nothing here, just the Baltic and the sea strand, nothing but East and Russia and the car behind them on an empty road. The winds of November blow and the sea roars.

They stay like that for a moment, and Russia isn't moving, isn't saying anything. He doesn't smell like pity yet, probably never will because he's Russia and he doesn't feel things like westerners do. Coming here was a stupid but maybe bringing Russia wasn't that bad. At least he has someone to verbally assault before he has to come back to the city and its slow, agonizing grinding of the days that succeed one another without ever changing. It could be worse. He could have brought Austria with him. East thinks of awkward angry sex in the car his brother paid for, and he would laugh at the idea if he wasn't so tired.

"I wished that you would take this occasion to truly end your days, but you won't. I've come to understand this. It's odd. I've always thought that you would go down in flames instead of choosing to stay until everybody forgot your true name."

Russia's words have that soft, detached tone they always have when he talks about things that truly matters, and East suddenly hates him for it. He hates him for surviving the centuries and modernity, for turning the east, his east into dust, and he hates him because he's speaking the truth. East thought that he would go down in flames, but somehow he didn't. He didn't go and shoot himself on the shambles of his empire as soon as the wall fell. He drank beer and burned the cardboard car he had learnt to hate.

East looks at Russia and his eyes are still fixed on the horizon, looking eastwards. Somewhere behind the line that separates the sea and the sky, there's the canals of St-Petersburg waiting for him to come back. This is but a second in Russia's life, because Russia's not half-dead the same way East is. Their time doesn't come and pass the same way anymore.

"Well you don't know shit about me. Shut up." is all East manages to reply. His wit is as tired as his vocal chords from screaming.

Russia takes a moment to himself, his brows frowned from reflection. East doesn't want to think, and Russia's question are draining him even more than all the shouting. He looks straight in front of himself, at the sea that looks so beautiful at this time of the year. He misses the knights and the cross, and the smell of blood in the desert and the rust it left over the men's armours. He misses war so fucking much.

Russia gives him a look, his eyes concentrated, as if he was trying to read his mind. It works.

"Your brother called. This is why you're angry. Your brother called and told you, ordered you to come back home."

East turns his head away, doesn't answer. Russia's face lights up in understanding. He continues with the same heavily accented German, slowly and mercilessly pronouncing syllables one by one.

"You're not staying alive because you fear death, Prussia."

It's funny, how Russia's throat makes the "r" rolls and how his tongue twirls around the "ss" in a low hissing sound. Preußen. It's been decades since anyone has ever called East by his real name. The sound alone makes his spine shake in its very core. He feels even deader than before, but there's no more relief. East wants Russia to shut up. He wants him to shut up because no one ever knew about East, no one ever needed to know, especially not someone of the likes of Russia.

"You are staying-"  
"Shut up."  
"You are staying because you love him."

Russia's eyes shine with childish cruelty and East feels like someone is grating sand paper inside his chest. He feels like he's choking on his own breath and it makes his throat burn. Russia says other words, but East isn't listening, tries not to. It's all too accurate and it makes East's head ache.

"You've always loved him, from the start, from the ashes of the battle field he was born out of. You fought for him, sacrificed the brothers you've always hated for him to grow and live. You would have burnt the whole world if he had asked you to. You nearly did. But now it's over and all that's left is shame in his eyes and it's the worst kind of agony, but still, but still you can't bring yourself to go away just yet."

East doesn't know how exactly he ended up pining Russia to the ground, his palms against his throat and wishing, wishing so much he could bring himself to squeeze. East isn't the soldier he used to be, but he's still in shape, still able to let rage take over his body and strike. He can't get himself to fight Russia, somehow, of all people. Maybe it's because he can't get himself to fight anyone anymore.

His hands just lay there, motionless, and Russia doesn't even make a move to defend himself. There are wide, piercing violet eyes observing him, and East, no, Prussia can see the battlefields, Austria and France and the rest of them, and Bavaria with rage in his eyes and spitting hate up until his last breath. There was Versailles and there was the ruins, the chaos, the shame, West's anger in his large blue eyes. He remembers turning Poland into ruins because West had asked him, burning the continent and laughing as he did. He remembers Potsdam and the guilt in West's eyes as he looked at his own hands, unable to wash away the blood he saw. He remembers the east and the slow grinding of days, the marches of the first of May and the prisons without windows.

He remembers the drive towards Bonn, decades ago, the sound of the cheap out-dated engine of the Trabi, thinking about how he wanted to turn around and shoot himself instead of seeing West again. West had smiled, that stupid smile of him, hugged him awkwardly. There weren't a lot of words exchanged. West smiled, talked about a bright new future and East tried not to make any correlation with West's previous talks about a future for the both of them. He had, his voice hissing low, and West's eyes had taken that greyish shade of regret he still wore to this day.

East had grown to miss those days. He misses it all because West thought of him as something else than a past he's afraid of. He misses that quiet admiration of his brother as he built an empire for him, the fuming, screaming anger and the wonderful fights they used to have before West changed under the wheel of time and turned into a monster of compassion and self-hate. Every time he looks at him and thinks of the glory of days long gone, it hurts, it hurts so much that he throws up blood in the middle of the night when he knows West is sleeping. He misses it and he doesn't want to die because every time he thinks about leaving West, something, somewhere inside his mind fears that there would be this slight, nearly imperceptible sign of relief on West's face if he did.

He retires his hands from Russia's throat, lets himself fall on the beach's sand next to him. Russia doesn't rise, only turns his head towards him. His eyes aren't showing anything more than that same detached curiosity he had shown him back on Alexanderplatz, but there's something that might be just like compassion in the curve of his mouth and the frowning of his eyes. Easy might be imagining it, though. He probably is.

They part ways in the afternoon, as East leaves Russia in Kaliningrad's train station with nothing more than a nod and a wave. Russia understands, because Russia isn't like the rest of them and East knows that he doesn't nearly care about him enough to give more of a thought to whatever happened in front of the Baltic this morning. The puzzle was solved and Russia would move on onto whatever he did these days, missing the exquisite power Lithuania gave him or some shit. East doesn't really give fucks. He drives away, back to West and to Berlin, the Ramones screaming in the Maserati's loud speakers.


	4. 4

West has this weird kind of emptiness in his face when East knocks on the door of his house in the middle of the night. His berlinese house isn't in town like East's own flat on Karl-Marx Allee. It's a small suburban home in the northern part of the city's extended periphery, with a garden and room for West's dog. It fits him the same way East's own present home fits him; reluctantly and awkwardly, but somehow managing to work it out.

Hi brother lets him in without saying a word and East would like him to be angry, to shout and slam his fist on the table like he used to back when they were bitter and starving because of East's fucking Kaiser. West only looks at him with something like disappointment in his face, and it hurts more than a thousand Russian tanks rolling over Berlin in ruins, somehow. East steps inside, grins because it's easier this way, doesn't take off his shoes, plays the game, says nonsense about West's job and lights up without West's permission. West looks at him, flinches a bit, sits uncomfortably on one of the kitchen's chairs in front of his brother.

"Please don't smoke here."

East only makes a clicking sound with his tongue as an answer, using one of West's coffee mug on the table as an ashtray.

"You know," he says between two puffs of smoke, "You'd be better in Cologne at this time of the year. Berlin's weather is really fucking shitty in autumn."  
"You know that I have work here."  
"Meh." Of course West has work to do. West had always had so much work to do. "You got anything to eat? I'm starving."

West lets out a distant, tired smile, rises, opens up the fridge, his bulking form peering inside. He looks too tall for the furniture, somehow, and East can't help but to think about those atrocious plastic chairs from the old days he kept out of nostalgia in Karl-Marx Allee.

"I've got some leftover Weißwurst and cheese"

East laughs.

"You fucking Bavarian. Whatever. Hand me the beer."

West takes out the sausages anyway, cuts a few slice of bread, and places them neatly on a plate. East takes the beer he's offered with a nod, drinks it with disdainful sips. He doesn't like its taste but he needs the alcohol. Hopefully he'll get to crash the Maserati again and West will have to buy him a new one. West cuts himself a piece of Weißwurst, eats it the Bavarian way. The stereotype makes East's head ache.

"How was your day?" asks East, not because he really cares but because the silence is starting to make him uneasy.  
"I went to Potsdam."

East looks at him, dumbfounded. If there's a place in Germany that West loathes more than Berlin or fucking Nurnberg, it's Potsdam. His silence is a question in itself and West continues speaking, a piece of Weißwurst between his fingers. He hasn't taken out the mustard out of laziness, maybe. Bavaria, back when he lived, couldn't eat those without it.

"It had been a while. Park Sanssouci is still pretty."

West sighed, raised his eyes up to look at East. The guilt, the suffocating guilt is still there, but it doesn't really matter anymore. He's honest when he opens his mouth once again and speaks.

"I thought I would meet you there."

East's cigarette is forgotten in the makeshift ashtray and West doesn't even make a move to stop him as he put it off against the same mug, letting it fall in the cup. Eyes closed, East thinks back to the end of the war, to forty years on each side of the wall, of how he wants to die but doesn't at the same time. He looks at West's blue eyes and he realises that it isn't out of cowardice that he does this, the shame and the self-hate. It's out of love too.

East opens his mouth and says words that make the colour of West's eyes change to a brighter, prouder shade of blue.

Of all people living on this piece of shit earth, it was Russia that had somehow managed to understand the complicated relationship that united East to West.


End file.
